Chương 10: Chapter 9 - Much Ado About Magicite

As this conflict rages on, it becomes ever more abundant that neither of our nations will ever be able to conquer the other. We only continue to throw the lives of our people away in a needless struggle while the true enemy lies elsewhere. I am referring, of course, to the vile nation of Pumil. Too long have the disgraceful shortfolk sat fat and comfortable beyond their walls and profited off our never-ending war.

Happy to sell us arms and armor with which we can better kill each other for their perverse entertainment. That is grievance enough, but if that had been the only offense, I would have held my tongue. But no. One of your own people, the very [Hero] of Placeholder, came to me with a petition for aid to enter the dwarven lands. It seems that the blasphemers have barred her entry. To revoke diplomatic access to the [Hero] is serious enough, but she further claims that the [Demon Lord] is in their lands.

Yes, the [Demon Lord] has reared his ugly head once more. The calamitous one who is responsible for centuries of misfortune that have befallen both of our great nations… all the while Pumil remains untouched. To set aside the flowery speech of the courts, I will be blunt. I see this as nothing less than irrefutable evidence of the corruption of the dwarves. They have pitted us against each other to keep us distracted, but those [Demon Lord] worshippers are the true enemy.

I am asking for an end to the hostilities between us… so that we may finally raze that contemptible wall those devil-touched beings have hidden behind. Secret missive between [King] Graham and the [Governors] of Dryadal I made a clean getaway from what was left of Varnak's workshop. The question was what to do next. I pulled out the mithril orb. That brought up several complicated emotions from what had just happened, primarily overwhelming guilt, but I shoved all of that aside. I need to scale this up.

Increase the mana storage. And then put out hundreds or thousands of the things. I thought. So, first, I need some material to work with that has high mana storage. My thoughts immediately went back to the [Restart] ritual.

"That'd work," I muttered. Next goal, one giant magicite crystal to test carving the runes into. That meant another trip back into the Below. Or does it? I furrowed my brow for a moment. What did I do with that crystal for sending the [[Message]]? I belatedly realized that it had been almost 20 years since I had failed to contact Admin. After retracing my steps mentally and realizing I had left it sitting in the fire dungeon, I teleported back there using my beacon.

Fortunately, the giant crystal was still right where I had left it. I walked around it a few times, looking back and forth between it and the rune-covered ball that still emitted a soft light. Then, I remembered how much mana it had taken to fire up that small ball. It took nearly half of my mana pool. I thought. Something as big as that will take… way more. I frowned. That meant the best place to do the enchanting was in my throne room, where I had the five times mana buff.

With another herculean effort, I stowed the giant magicite crystal into my inventory and then sat down to wait for enough mana to teleport again. What can I do while I wait? I asked. I realized that I technically could have done the carving right there, but I didn't want to have to pull out the magicite crystal again. Instead, I went back to a place that I hadn't visited in a while… the MindScape.

"A lot lonelier in here than last time," I stated as I looked around at the blank white space. Even though one of them had tried to steal my ritual and murder me… and the other one had previously tried to murder me… I kinda missed my headmates. Don't focus on that. I chided. Focus on the goal. It's the only way to keep from spiraling. And that's what I did. I focused on the enchantments that the [Mad Inventor] had created, and worked on scaling them up to the size I needed. I finally worked out how he did it.

"It's an active effect that pulls in mana, not a passive one," I stated, examining the runes.

"However, the bulk of its pull is used to support its own enchantment. That's why the ball was flickering. It prioritized the mana draw part over the light part." I nodded slowly.

"However, these runes weren't made by a high-level [Enchanter]. I bet if I made them that I could get it down to maybe… half of the upkeep cost?" However, that was contingent on something I realized I had yet to check. I opened my eyes to focus back on the physical world and walked over to the obelisk.

"Upgrade," I stated as I put my hand on it. It complained that I didn't have it activated, so I grumpily activated it, said upgrade again, and then deactivated it. Then, I finally checked my status.

"Level 9 [Weaponsmith]. Level 9 [Enchanter]. I can now make masterwork-level weapons and runes," I stated softly. Both of those were the achievements of a lifetime for a normal resident of Placeholder… but they felt hollow to me. Because I have no one to share them with. I thought. Like Varnak. Shoving that all aside again, I sat down and leaned against the obelisk. I tinkered around in the MindScape until my Singularity-boosted mana was back up to full. Then, I teleported all the way across the world to my castle.

"No place like home," I muttered as I walked into the throne room. I dumped the giant crystal in the middle with a large thud and then started carving the upscaled versions of the intricate mana-collecting runes. I wasn't even halfway through when I realized I had a problem. Well… a few problems, but one immediate one.

"Will the mana it gathers even be usable?" I muttered. I had previously dealt with that by carving runes to draw the mana from the crystal and out into the air for the [Restart] ritual… and the [[Message]] one had let me simply convert all the mana since it had all technically been "mine." However, if this was generating its own mana, I wasn't sure if it would work quite the same way with the runes essentially granting the giant rock its own mana restoration. I guess I'll find that out the hard way here in a bit.

I grumbled as I kept carving. The second problem came in through the throne room doors.

"Your lowliness! You're back!" Anger exclaimed as he came in and dropped to one knee.

"The others have betrayed your orders, but your loyal servants Hysteria and I are-""I know what the others are up to," I replied dryly, not taking my eyes off my project.

"And frankly, I don't really care what you do. I have my own plans, and none of you will be any help, so get out of here. Go attack the wall uselessly again or something." He gaped for a moment but eventually left. His leaving was marked by the slamming of the doors and then a few moments later the screaming of several imps and other demons. I could only assume that Anger was working off his frustration that I wasn't willing to help him at all. Do I let the demons in on this plan? I asked myself.

On the positive side, more people would make things easier. On the negative side… I frowned. There were a lot of negatives. First, I would be handing the key to near-infinite mana generation to a group of beings that are just as likely to backstab me as help me complete my goal, should they become strong enough to think they could win. I snorted. If Anger had 50 years to accumulate mana and figured out something he could do with it, I wasn't sure I would retain my place at the bottom of the lowerarchy for long.

Second, there's a chance that the information leaks and the rest of Placeholder learns about this. My armor is still better against physical attacks than magic, and I would rather not give the world's mages that amount of a leg up on me. Third… I had already convinced myself, but I figured I would be thorough. I would have to trick the demons about what all the mana is for long-term. And while I don't think that would be terribly difficult, this will probably be an effort that takes centuries.

I don't trust myself to not slip up, or for them to notice that the amount of mana I've gathered is more than enough to destroy all of Placeholder multiple times over. I looked around at the throne room.

"With the number of times [Heroes] have made it here, this isn't the most secure location either," I muttered. That settled things. I could still do the charging in the throne room, but there was no way I would leave the giant crystals there unsupervised.

"Where else could I put them, though?" I asked as I continued my work. I didn't immediately come to an answer, and I finished up my work on the runes before I could.

"Alright, moment of truth," I stated as I pulled out Singularity and tried to power the runes. I was sure that it would probably take multiple mana pools to power the thing, even with my insane maximum, but I was shocked when it took less than half of my total, and I could feel the mana that the magicite was pulling in from the air.

"Well, dang," I said.

"Are runes made at my level just that much better? Or is it easier to activate because magicite is a natural mana absorber?" Both of those options made sense. Runes from a level 9 [Enchanter] were a huge leap above the low-level work that had been done to the mithril ball. Also, Varnak, Elnil, and I had never really looked into it, but it did make a certain amount of sense that enchanting something that was fit for that purpose was easier than something that wasn't.

I'll have to try putting Sharpness on a club sometime and see what happens. I thought. I shook my head to get back on track.

"Next up, does this mana count as mine for converting to manipulation points?" I asked. I put my hand on the crystal and attempted the conversion. It dumped out all of my remaining mana in my mana bar… and added nothing else.

"Well, frick," I grumbled.

"Looks like I'll need to come up with a way to pull the mana out of the magacite as well." The first option was a simple one. Simply put on some runes to draw the mana out of the crystal and into the air like I did with the [Restart] ritual. There were two problems with that. The first was that I wasn't actually doing a ritual. The second was-"Yup, it just gets pulled right back in," I said with a sigh as I finished carving into what turned out to be a giant failed prototype.

"If I want this to work, I'll have to make some enhancements to the rune array so that the pull can be turned off… Or maybe inverted." I frowned.

"Without something like that, this is all pretty useless…" I stated.

"Maybe Varnak-" I stopped.

"Not even a day since I killed him, and already wishing I didn't." I sat down against the giant crystal and sighed.

"I had to do it. This knowledge can't be released to Placeholder. I know it." I lightly hit my helmeted head against the magicite crystal.

"But it still makes me a monster, doesn't it? Killing someone I knew… no… killing a friend who I had worked with for a decade, who had done me no wrong." The guilt ate at me… and that felt right. A small mithril ball had earned its place in my inventory forever, just as a simple emerald necklace would adorn my neck until I ended the very OmniverseEngine itself. However, my aura spiked before I could help it.

"Who would make such a terrible System?" I asked myself with my fist clenched.

"Who would make a System that would not only force me to become the [Demon Lord]… but force me to murder the woman I loved if I didn't want to watch her tortured by demons?" I slammed my fist into the magicite crystal, and it cracked slightly.

"Whoever made all of this, this is your fault!" I shouted up at the ceiling.

"If you hadn't done all of that, Varnak would still be alive too! All of this only happened because you not only let the timeloop happen, but you forced it on me!" I slammed my fist into the magicite again.

"I swear that I'm going to-" My tirade was cut short by a message from the System. System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form I paused and stared at that.

"You know what," I stated.

"Frick it. Go ahead." System: Wrath Form Activated Anger was furious. He had spent decades trying to breach that stupid wall that those pathetic mortals had erected. Then, the [Demon Lord] had returned without a word. That showed that he had some way past the wall. Or, failing that, he could at least act as [General] to lead the troops! When the [Demon Lord] did none of those things, Anger was incensed. He vented his frustrations on the other demons for a bit but eventually cooled down enough to start scheming.

Perhaps he is not as fit to lead as I thought.

Anger grumbled to himself as he walked back to the throne room. Also, he is strong, but isn't that strength just in his armor? If I take that away from him… or even better, obtain it for myself. Anger grinned at the thought of donning the [Demon Lord's] armor. He would be unkillable. He would go on an unending rampage that wouldn't even be stymied by the forces of Heaven. He would- He paused at the throne room doors as he heard screaming.

He nodded briefly in schadenfreude that the experiment the [Demon Lord] had kicked him out for had not gone well and then prepared to enter. That's when the health bar appeared for the Demon Lord of Wrath. He could feel the aura stretch even out beyond him. Part of it invigorated him. It called to his very essence as a demon of wrath. The other part terrified him. It told him in no uncertain terms who the leader of the lowerarchy was and what would happen should he challenge the true leader in that room.

As soon as he heard the roar and the great crash from inside the room, he fled. The other demons were shaking in terror, and even Hysteria seemed distraught.

"What is it, what is it, what is it?" Hysteria asked.

"He has awakened! He will consume all! He will destroy us! Why does he come?" Anger calmed himself for several seconds.

"It would seem our lord's experiment didn't go well," Anger eventually replied. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. What followed after that was a panicked hour where every demon was waiting for the monstrous lord of the lowerarchy to come and kill them for their failures. Nothing ever came. Eventually, the boss health bar even disappeared. That left them all wondering what to do. Hesitantly, the lead demons and several others, approached the throne room.

"You, yourself, and you should go check on him," Hysteria stated as he nudged Anger. Anger growled at him.

"No, you should go. As leader, I give the orders!" Hysteria shook his head.

"Not the leader. Not the leader. Not the leader! [Demon Lord] is back! [Demon Lord] is leader!"

"I am not going in there," Anger stated flatly.

"Not I, neither I, nor I!" The two demons glared each other down… and then shared a look.

When I came back to myself and my normal form after my hour-long tantrum, the magicite crystal was in approximately ten thousand pieces scattered around my throne room. That made sense. I didn't have any enemies nearby, there was no need to leave my throne room, and the magicite crystal had been one of the targets of my ire. I am going to need to get a new one. I thought as I examined the carnage. Then, there came a hesitant knock at the door. I shrugged.

"Enter," I called out. The door opened slightly, and a random demon was shoved in.

"B-b-b-b-be n-n-n-not angry, y-y-yyour-" he stuttered. I snorted.

"Just out with it. I won't harm you." He gulped several times.

"Anger, I am here at his command, so any interruption is his fault, wants to know if you require anything from us." I was about to order him out and say never to disturb me again, but I realized I did actually have a use for grunt work for once.

"Yes. Get all of this cleaned up within the next… Oh, 6 hours or so?" I nodded.

"Yes. Within the next 6 hours should be fine." The demon balked slightly.

"J-j-just me, your lowliness?" he asked. I shrugged.

"You and whoever else. I don't care. Just get it done." I paused. Oh, right, dealing with demons. I activated my aura and leaned in.

"Or there will be consequences for all of you." The demon gave a shrill affirmative and then ran off to gather some others. Meanwhile, I pulled out Singularity and started my cast for [Teleport to Beacon]. Since I didn't want to keep stepping on magicite shards that were draining my mana, I walked up and sat on my throne as I did so. To be honest, that probably was the most [Demon Lord] thing I had done that whole life.

Make a huge mess, command someone else to clean it up, and then disappear randomly when they weren't even a quarter of the way done to go and do something else.

The trip down to the giant crystal farming zone, or I guess boss area if you wanted to refer to it as the System did, was uneventful. Just like I did the last time, I prepared to deactivate my [Invert Gravity] and kill the Crystalline Calamity tediously with [Mage Bolts]. Before I did, I remembered something, though. Wait. I thought as it moved one of its legs forward, and a line of crystals jutted toward me. The only reason I had to [Mage Bolt] it last time was I didn't have a high enough damage type to hurt it.

I continued as I sidestepped the attack. I grinned and stowed Singularity. In its place, I pulled out one of my 3 "backup" swords. It had been a while since I made it, so I used [Appraise Weapon] on it. Greater Adamantium Sword A well-crafted sword enchanted with Sharpness Materials Adamantium Tier Greater Base Damage 20 sla IV Damage Scaling 1 per 4 Enchant Sharpness (Inactive) Only two damage tiers up. But what if I… I fed mana into the sword.

It glowed a dull orange along the runes and the blade, and I reappraised it. The damage jumped up to 25 slashing V damage. And that put a smile on my face. A match for Mishael's weapon… and this is going to be my backup. That was a bit too long to spend admiring my crafting, though. The next set of crystals impacted me, and I took a bit of damage as I went tumbling.

"Ow," I said as I rolled up to my feet.

"Well, let's do this." I [Flash Stepped] forward and gave an awkward swing of my sword that missed the mark.

"Oh, right. Left-handed," I stated as the calamity's tail whipped across and hit me for no damage. I tossed the sword to my other hand and then scored a clean hit on the monster. It didn't bellow in pain or anything, but its health bar actually moved. Much faster than [Mage Bolt]. I grinned as it bit me on the shoulder, and I replied by giving it a cut across the face. My attack was the clear winner. My attack dealt damage while its didn't.

However, to make things awkward, now that it was grappling me, my [Invert Gravity] started affecting it. We started on a crash course toward the ceiling, just like my first fight with it. I shoved it in mid-air before we could fall too far, and it let go. We both collapsed back to the floor and then went at it again. The fight went on for a while, and I was definitely getting the better of it.

The simple fact was that I could damage it, but it couldn't damage me without doing the crystal attack, and it didn't seem to like doing that when I was up close and personal. So, my armor was putting in good work, but my sword was also a contender for MVP in my mind… at least until I remembered. My sword. That drained my mana. My mana. That I needed for [Invert Gravity]. Yeah, [Invert Gravity] was such second nature to me at that point that I was actually shocked when I started plummeting toward the ceiling.

It even took me a few seconds to realize that my empty mana bar was the culprit and that maybe I shouldn't be using [Invert Gravity] and a mana-draining sword simultaneously in combat. After landing roughly on the ceiling, I stowed my sword with a sigh.

"Guess we're back to [Mage Bolting]," I grumbled as I was about to pull out Singularity. Then, I saw a different item that piqued my interest instead.

"I haven't gotten to test you out either," I muttered. Then, with a shrug, I pulled out a crossbow. Specifically, the only one I ever made with adamantium limbs.

"Never did get to try this one out," I muttered.

"Let's give it a go." The reason for that was that I couldn't exactly let it be known that I was making an adamantium crossbow when all I had promised were adamantium swords. And while I could have simply told people I was trying out a crossbow, I was worried about what would happen if I succeeded. I didn't want Pumil's [King] clamoring for an adamantium crossbow too, or something silly like that. I hefted the crossbow and frowned a bit about how heavy it was before shaking my head.

Heavy limbs mean more to move and, therefore, a slower bolt speed, so this might not be that great a weapon after all. For completeness' sake, I also pulled out one of the few adamantium bolts I had made and nocked it. Then, I finally appraised my weapon. Greater Adamantium Crossbow A well-crafted crossbow with adamantium limbs. Its high damage comes at the cost of its heavy frame and difficult draw Materials Adamantium Tier Greater Base Damage 90 prc IV I whistled aloud.

"90 flat damage? That's pretty nuts." That was doubly true since I could just hand that crossbow to anyone and they would be able to deal that number immediately. … Or so I thought.

"Frickin'… heavy," I grunted as I tried to force the string back. Giving up doing it manually, I used the crank, and even then, it was a bit of a struggle. I was left with a cocked crossbow that's string seemed like it might simply fail at any moment.

"I see what you mean by a difficult draw, System," I stated with a snort.

"Yeah, this crossbow would probably take 15 levels or more to use." With a shake of my head, I got back on target. I lined the giant boss up in my sights and then pulled the trigger to release my bolt. There was a sharp crack as the bolt practically disappeared, and the adamantium limbs snapped back into place faster than I could track. I had no clue where the bolt had even gone, but I must have scored a hit, given that the boss monster writhed in pain for a moment. I had something else on my mind, though.

That crack… Did I make a supersonic crossbow? I frowned. Back on Earth, I'm pretty sure that crossbows were nowhere near supersonic… Fantasy metals are such bull spit. I had committed myself to not making firearms in Placeholder due to the danger, but I belatedly realized that I had essentially created one anyway.

"Well, that worked, but let's try out the other bolts," I muttered. I pulled out a mithril bolt next. Mithril usually made for a poor weapon material. It didn't tend to hold an edge, and that's why you didn't see any rich kids running around using the stuff for their swords. I appraised the weapon again and saw that the damage plummeted all the way to 60 piercing III damage just by changing out the bolt. However, I figured that would be made up pretty easily by the other properties.

"Varnak's special," I said as I eyed the runes on my chosen bolt. I ignored the guilt, took aim, and fired. I was ready for the sonic boom this time and prepared for the enchantment to take effect on the other end. Still, I didn't quite expect that the resulting explosion would be nearly half the size of the boss and deal more damage than a sword strike and adamantium bolt combined. I whistled in appreciation.

"Must not have resistance to explosion magic. Good to know," I stated. However, I didn't want to keep wasting my expensive ammo, so I returned to using basic steel-tipped bolts. Fortunately, I was a much better crossbowman than an archer, so all of my shots were on target… Though, remembering my archery attempts made me cringe as I remembered that I had been so terrible at it that I couldn't hit a stationary dragon that was stuck in the bottom of my castle.

Unfortunately, my adamantium crossbow seemed like it would snap itself in half at any moment, and I didn't want to keep risking it on a boss that I could defeat otherwise. I tried to use one of my other crossbows after that, but the damage wasn't really appreciable. So, in the end, it came back to [Mage Bolting] the boss to death. That left a bad taste in my mouth, though. The biggest threat in Placeholder, and I still can't beat a level 25 monster by myself. I paused. Without cheating with gravity.

Or being immune to all of its attacks. Or by sneaking up on it in the middle of the night and ambushing it with armies of daves. I snorted at that. It turned out that while I couldn't win in a straight-up fight, my track record against Crystalline Calamities, Infernal Dire Snails, and Dragons was pretty dang one-sided. I still need to get stronger, though. I realized. The System sends out warnings when I'm going to do rituals that can destabilize Placeholder.

So, if I'm going to do one that will destroy the entire System… I trailed off. I had to assume that I would be fighting everyone and everything all at once. Even the demons. As destructive as they are, I highly doubt they would want to give up existing just to destroy things. I wagered. They seem selfish enough that they wouldn't want to risk themselves. The good news was that I had all the time in the world to prepare. When it was finally came time for me to enact my grand plan, I would be ready.

Despite all my misgivings and hatred for everything that was done to me… I guess I am a [Demon Lord] in the end. I gave a short, humorless laugh. After all, my current plan wasn't one that a [Hero] would come up with. After waiting for enough mana to [Invert Gravity] again, I harvested the crystal and then prepared to teleport out. Then, I had a thought. You know… I'm probably going to be here a lot. Maybe I should set up a beacon on this end as well. It added an entire 6 hours to my plan.

I was going back much later than I told the demons to expect me, but the good news about being an evil overlord was that you didn't have to keep too much stock in doing what you told your minions you would. Over the next 6 hours, I cast the ritual that locked in the coordinates for that single spot in space. I made sure to do it on the ceiling so I could start with the [Mage Bolt] barrage when I came back instead of having to do anything else. However, all that extra downtime gave me time to think.

I decided to use it to ponder the ritual once more. First three coordinates are X, Y, and Z. I thought. I confirmed the 4 th is dimension since that part changes between the Below and Placeholder proper… and I can't use [Teleport to Beacon] across dimensions. I frowned. That was something I might try to improve later on. Maybe an improved version of [Teleport to Beacon] would let me teleport directly from my castle to the below? I asked. Tentatively adding that to my to-do list, I pondered the rest of the ritual.

I still wish I knew what the final two coordinates were encoding. I thought. Maybe I should try tweaking those a bit and see what happens. Not that I would be the one who would go through that teleport. I would send a dave, most likely, or- Ya know… I now have expendable respawning subordinates who can actually talk and tell me what they experienced. I couldn't help the small smile that came to my face. I really didn't like the demons and wished I had never opened the dang gate in the first place.

However, I had other matters to deal with first, so the demons were safe for now. When the ritual was complete and I had enough mana, I teleported back to the below entrance. Then, I had to wait again for all my mana to return so I could teleport back to my castle. This always takes so frickin' long. I thought as I snuck around inside the mines. Yeah, yeah. An hour to regenerate more than 1000 mana is insane by anyone here's standards, but still.

What would I do if I needed to get across all of Placeholder in a hurry? I frowned briefly as I thought of my foray into alchemy my first few lives. MP potions would help, I guess. I thought. But I would have to chug a lot of them to get 1000 mana. I just wish that I could easily retrieve the mana that I stored in my magicite. And that thought gave me pause.

"Well, I'm trying to do that anyway," I muttered.

"This would just be a smaller scale, so maybe that's a good place to start in the first place." Starting smaller meant that I needed a smaller piece of magicite. Preferably one that was handheld. If only I had somewhere I could get something like that. I chuckled internally as I snuck around the active magicite mine. It was a pretty simple matter to sneak a couple of crystals here and there, and that was the first problem solved.

So, if I pretend that this was the big one, I still have to give it the same mana-gathering array on it. I snuck over to a quiet corner and started carving into the magicite.

"Not very much room for it," I muttered. A group of chattering miners walked past with pickaxes hefted on their shoulders, and I barely jumped to my feet to enter [Sneak] in time. As soon as they were gone, I grumbled and got back to it. If there isn't enough room on the magicite itself, maybe I need to tweak the array, or… A grin took over my face. I need to make an extractor. It was time to design an entirely new magic item.

For the material, mithril was a pretty safe bet. I needed something that would take really well to runes if I was going to get an effect that would overpower the magacite's mana pull. That left only silver, gold, and paladium. The last of which was obviously out right from the get-go. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have much mithril on me. That meant that I had to go make some purchases.

I cast [Disguise Self], disguised myself similarly, but not quite, like the dwelf disguise I had used to interact with Varnak, and decided to hit up some of his suppliers directly. I must have made my disguise a bit too similar because I kept getting mistaken for my other fake identity, who was dead. I ended up going with the story that Nindrol Silverleaf was actually my now-deceased brother and that I was the [Enchanter] who he had worked with… thus, the need for the mithril.

The lie worked better than I expected, but they had no mithril to sell to me. What they did have was silver and gold ore. That worked fine for me. I could make the mithril myself if I could locate a furnace. Or I could even make it black mithril instead. That sounded like a much better idea. I didn't have to waste magicite, and I could also make it so that whatever item I made wouldn't be usable by anyone but me because of the infernal trait.

Well, I guess that technically the demons could also use it, but I would see to it that they wouldn't frickin' dare. As for the furnace where I would make my mithril, I was tempted to pop by the old shop that I had bought as Nindrol and see what became of it. But then, I had an interesting idea. I remembered that my castle was technically a dungeon, and I was a [Dungeon Master].

Though it seemed like it had lost several of its dungeon traits since the portal to Hell was opened, I wondered if I could still modify it a bit. If so, I figured that was a much better solution than needing to keep doing my crafting out among the dwarves (or humans or elves), where I could eventually be caught and have to relocate. So, I finally teleported back to my castle to take a look. The answer was yes. I could create a forge room in the castle with my [Dungeon Master] class and [Edit Dungeon Properties].

It was a bit finicky, however. It seems that since the dungeon was already established, there was a certain amount of "resources" that I could allocate to dungeon rooms. That meant that to set up a furnace, I had to cannibalize a few of the other features. … Did you know that the armory was still producing the knives I had set it up to automatically create back when I needed them in my fight with Jake? I didn't.

Thus, the avalanche of knives that I got to the face when I opened the door from more than five centuries of production. It was good that I habitually wore my armor everywhere and for everything because that could have been a very pointy and awkward death. After removing the armory and ordering the demons to clean up all the daggers, I finally made a forge room. I wanted to start off big and make an adamantium furnace for smithing up to that level… but it looked like that would take too much to add.

Even after I removed the kitchen and basically all of the other features I could find in my castle. I eventually had to settle with a steel one enchanted with fire resistance. However, that did awaken the scientist in me for a bit. Was it possible to rip out the furnace and then use the steel that it gave me? If so, and if I could establish a dungeon somewhere else that had adamantium, I could have an easily found renewable source. The short answer was no.

The furnace counted basically as part of the dungeon scenery. That meant that when I ripped out a piece of the furnace, it disintegrated and disappeared. Fortunately, it also repaired itself shortly after. However, none of that ruled out adding adamantium as loot to a dungeon since loot didn't despawn. I added that to my to-do list to try someday. A list that I felt like I had been adding a lot to in recent memory.

Anyway, I had plenty of time to think about my design for my "mana extraction tool" as I made my batch of black mithril. It turned out that most of my designs were garbage. Since the entire goal was to extract mana, I initially thought of something like a syringe, but that was way too difficult to make for my goal and too easy to break. Then, I thought of just some covering to add to the magicite itself. Something that when activated, countered the entire mana draw enchant.

However, that would take way too much magicite and probably more mana than I could draw from it. And that would just be for base magicite. As I was discovering, it was much, much harder to pull mana out of magicite that had Varnak's runes carved into it. Trying to pull the mana out of too broad of an area didn't work, so I needed to create a localized disruption instead. Then, black mithril didn't have enough conductance to carry the mana to me, so I swapped to using black mithril and dragon bone.

I didn't even really understand what I had made until it was finished, but I immediately recognized a secondary application.

Anger was called to an audience with the [Demon Lord]. He wasn't sure what to make of that… especially since his lowliness hadn't interacted with any demon for months except to have them clean up various parts of the castle. In Anger's ideal world, the [Demon Lord] would reveal his next plan for conquering the world, and Anger would finally get to stop sitting around and amusing himself by beating up the other demons.

After feeling the overwhelming presence of the Demon Lord of Wrath, Anger would settle for simply leaving the meeting alive.

"Anger, good," the [Demon Lord] stated.

"And at full mana, perfect." Anger raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, yes, my lord. I'm at full mana. How did you know?" He didn't hear his lowliness cast a spell, but then again, Anger didn't use mana for much. It could just as easily have been a lucky guess.

"It doesn't matter. Now, hold still for a moment." Before Anger could ask a question, the [Demon Lord] had plunged a wicked white-bladed dagger with a black hilt into his arm. Anger recoiled out of habit. It hadn't hurt much, and it was actually much more dangerous to ignore the direct order he had been given to hold still. He froze and waited for the consequences of disobeying the [Demon Lord's] direct order, but his lowliness appeared to be checking his status instead.

"Hmm, so it still drains mana on hit, but it's only about… three quarters effective looking at Anger's mana bar," he stated.

"Now, actually hold still for a minute. I need to see something." Anger was too confused to respond as the knife plunged into him and remained there.

"Huh. Only drains mana on the initial strike. That's weird. It was constant on the magicite. Well, that at least answers the question. Making something that can pierce through and take mana from an artificial mana regeneration unit will also work on a humanoid, or demonoid, one." The [Demon Lord] turned around and started tinkering with some pieces around the forge. His lowliness started muttering to himself.

"Didn't actually mean to make a mana-draining dagger, but I guess it will still be helpful." He paused and looked at the weapon.

"Guess you need a name now, too. Mana stealer? Nah, stealer makes it sounds like it's from Pit's burg. Will taker? Oooh. Essence Thief. That's the one." He looked back at Anger, who was still standing there in confusion.

"Oh, you're still here? Dismissed," he stated offhandedly. Anger left the room, relieved to still be in one piece. However, he couldn't help but think to himself. You don't act like a demon of wrath… nor a demon of sloth anymore. And you also aren't trying very hard to conquer the world. His eyes narrowed. What is your actual goal, [Demon Lord]? Anger would need to find a way to get in contact with Trickery. Their lord was up to something. He was sure of it.